Dear High School Senior Year Me,

You’re sitting there at a desk in some class, probably reading a book. You’re counting down the minutes until that bell rings and you can go home. Your biggest stress is college applications, scholarship essays, and dual enrollment classes.

You have no idea what’s about to hit you. You have no idea what your future holds. But, I can tell you one thing: You’ll survive it all.

You have no idea that you’ll change drastically. You’re going to change your mind about your dream school. You’re going to encounter all kinds of new people and new situations.

You’ll make it through your first Thanksgiving without your great grandmother. It will be hard, but you’ll do it. And you’ll know she was proud of you.

You’ll get your first acceptance letter moments before leaving to perform in your last Christmas parade. It wasn’t your dream school, but in less than two months, it will be. You'll run around the house announcing to everyone that you're going to college. You'll call your grandparents to tell them the good news. You'll try not to cry tears of joy, and you won't right then. You'll cry that night.

You’ll keep doing the books for basketball games and try not to face the fact that you won’t be doing them next year. It doesn’t matter how hard you plead with Daddy to let you come back to do them. The answer will always be “School comes first.”

You’ll begin to realize the difference between true friends and friends that you just have because you see them five days a week.

You’ll visit that college you thought wasn’t for you, and you’ll fall in love with it. And in a few short months, you’ll meet a girl you want to room with. You’ll plan everything for your room perfectly.

You’ll get that other acceptance letter to the school you knew you’d spend four years at, but you won’t really care. You’ll know you’ve made up your mind.

You’ll spend the last few months of high school just ready to leave. You’ll count down the days until graduation.

When graduation finally rolls around, you’ll start to miss it a little. It will hit you that life will never be like it was before you graduated.

You’re going to spend the summer doing calculus. You might hate it at the time, but trust me, you’ll thank yourself later.

That roommate you planned everything with is going to have to transfer, and you’ll get a roommate. Don’t worry though, you’ll stay good friends with your original roommate. However, things won’t really work out with your new roommate.

You’ll move in to your dorm, and for the first time, it will start to sink in. You’ll family will leave and you’ll sit there in wonder – and exhaustion from those three flights of stairs - for a little while taking it all in.

You’ll meet your best friend. She’ll be the girl you tell everything to, the sister you never had, and next year, she’ll be your roommate.

You’ll learn to study for things. You got by in high school just looking over your notes a little five minutes before the test. You’ll learn it doesn’t work that way in college.

You’re going to have some odd professors, but you’re going to love the classes. You’ll be thankful you took that professor’s class. And, you’ll definitely have some great stories.

You won’t really talk to your friends from high school that often. But you’ll be okay with it. You’ll have new friends that teach you what it means to be a true friend.

Your life is going to change. You won’t know what to expect. But you’ll survive everything. You’ll be better for it.

You have no idea, but you’re about to become the person you truly are. I know we’ll have a lot more adventures and experiences over the next few years in college.

Love,

Your Current Self

P.S. You made a good choice in colleges. You’ll love PC more than you’ll ever know right now.